December 1995 · MIT
One of the lab monitors had started making a high, needling whine every time it warmed up.
Stephen had meant to deal with it three days ago. Now it was just part of the room. The sound lived somewhere above the printer hum and below the heater pipes knocking in the wall. Not loud enough to stop work. Just loud enough to stay there.
The lab smelled like old coffee, toner, and the dry hot dust that came off the radiators when the heat kicked on too hard. Finals week had pushed the whole building into the same state. Rooms too warm. Hands too cold. Half the campus moving on caffeine and whatever was left of their patience.
Stephen sat at the terminal with one hand on the keyboard and the other around a paper cup that had gone lukewarm ten minutes ago. The Mosaic output was crawling across the screen in pale green text, timing checks and drift tables and correction flags. He watched one block finish, then reached for the printed comparison set beside him.
Across the room, Paige poured the last of the coffee into her mug.
"You used the good grounds."
Stephen did not look up. "I made coffee."
"That does not answer the accusation."
"It answers the part that matters."
Paige took a sip and narrowed her eyes at the mug. "This tastes like punishment."
"You're still drinking it."
"That's because finals lower my standards."
She looked tired. Not slow. Sharpened. Her hair was pinned up badly enough that the pencil through it had started slipping sideways. A red ink mark crossed the side of her hand near the thumb. She had finals notes stacked beside the keyboard on her station and Mosaic printouts covering the rest.
The paper had been out a few weeks. That had been enough to make it feel less like theirs.
Twice this week Stephen had heard its name in seminar rooms he had not entered. Yesterday, in the hall outside 38, two graduate students had been arguing over whether the appendix was brilliant or paranoid. Stephen had kept walking and taken the long stairs instead of the elevator.
He did not know what to do with hearing strangers use his name like a citation before they ever used it like a person.
Eugene would have had no problem with that. Eugene would have joined the conversation.
Eugene was at the far station now, too upright, too loud, one arm wrapped around a stack of printouts while he talked through the calibration pass like silence might make the numbers worse.
"No, look," he said, tapping the top page with one finger. "The drift is not showing up on the third pass because the third pass is wrong. It starts earlier. That's what I'm saying. By the time it shows itself there, the whole set's already leaning."
Paige rubbed at her temple. "When did you last eat."
Eugene ignored her. "It's not even subtle. It's smug."
Stephen flipped one page over. "Systems don't get smug."
"People do, and then they code."
Paige glanced up. "That still does not answer me."
Eugene reached for the edge of the table.
His fingers missed it.
The printouts spilled first. Then his knees gave, and he went down hard enough that his shoulder hit the cabinet with a dull knock.
Paige's chair scraped back.
"Eugene."
Stephen was already moving. He crossed the room fast, dropped to one knee, and got a hand under Eugene's upper arm before he could slide sideways. Eugene's eyes were open. Breathing normally. Pale, though. His face had gone blank in a way Stephen did not like.
Eugene blinked once and stared up at the ceiling. "That was ugly."
"Can you stand," Stephen said.
Paige crouched on Eugene's other side and slapped the fallen printouts into a crooked stack against her thigh. "Do not say anything else until you answer him."
Eugene turned his head toward her. "That sounded severe."
"Eugene."
He shut his eyes once, opened them again. "Probably."
Between the two of them they got him upright. He leaned more than he wanted to. Stephen felt the weight come onto his arm and stay there.
Paige looked him over once, fast and clinical. "Health office."
Eugene made a face. "Counterproposal. We all forget this."
"No," Paige said.
"Strong word."
"It's the right one."
Stephen shifted Eugene's arm more securely over his shoulder. "Move."
The walk across the hall and down the stairs should not have been hard. Eugene made it hard anyway.
"I am fine."
"You were on the floor," Paige said.
"I was between projects."
"You hit the cabinet."
"That feels like editorializing."
Stephen said, "Stop talking."
That quieted him for half the stairwell.
The nurse at campus health took one look at the three of them and pointed them toward an exam room before anybody got halfway through an explanation. Ten minutes later Eugene was sitting on a paper-covered cot with a blood pressure cuff on his arm, a cup of orange juice in one hand, and a packet of crackers he had not opened yet.
The room smelled like disinfectant and stale heat. The sink in the corner had one water stain shaped like a continent Stephen did not recognize.
"Exhaustion," the nurse said. "Low blood sugar. Probably not enough sleep. Probably not enough food."
Eugene peeled at the edge of the cracker packet. "I appreciate how ordinary that sounds."
The nurse did not smile. "Ordinary is good."
Paige sat in the chair against the wall with both arms folded. "You passed out calibrating a test."
"I sat down quickly."
"You hit the cabinet."
"That part was unfortunate."
Stephen stayed standing. The paper under Eugene crackled every time he shifted. The fluorescent light overhead buzzed faintly at one end.
The nurse wrote something on the chart. "He needs a real meal. He needs water. He needs sleep." She looked directly at Eugene. "He also needs to stop acting like his body is a scheduling inconvenience."
Eugene raised the orange juice a little. "I feel seen."
"It was not meant kindly."
She stepped out.
The door shut behind her, and the room settled into the sound of the vent pushing warm air through the grate.
Paige leaned forward and braced her elbows on her knees. "We build systems that pace themselves better than we do."
Eugene finally got the crackers open. "Please do not get philosophical while I'm under observation."
She ignored that.
Stephen looked at him. "Eat."
"That was cold."
"You collapsed."
"That is true."
"Then eat."
Eugene ate a cracker and glared at both of them with low blood sugar dignity. "You're very hard to impress."
Paige stood before he finished chewing. "Good. Stay embarrassing for another fifteen minutes so they don't make me drag you back here."
"I'm not embarrassing," Eugene said. "I'm educational."
"You're a warning label."
They got him back to the dorm after the nurse cleared him with more instructions than he deserved and less shame than Paige thought appropriate.
At his door, Eugene turned with one hand still on the frame. The color had come back to his face enough to make him look annoyed again, which helped.
"I'm fine."
Paige narrowed her eyes. "That sentence has lost all value."
Eugene looked at Stephen instead. "Tell her I am medically boring."
Stephen said, "Eat dinner. Then sleep."
"That sounded parental."
"It sounded obvious."
Eugene's mouth twitched once. "Both of you make concern feel aggressive."
Paige said, "Because you only respond to aggression."
He gave up and went inside.
The hall felt hotter after the cold outside and narrower after the exam room. Paige stayed there for a second, staring at the closed door.
Then she looked at Stephen. "Do not do that."
He knew what she meant. "I heard the nurse."
"That is not the part I'm worried about."
She looked tired again. Not from the walk. From the half second in the lab when Eugene went down and she had not known what came next.
Stephen said, "I'm eating tonight."
Paige watched him long enough to make it clear she was measuring that answer against other answers he had given before.
Then she nodded once. "Good."
She headed for the stairs.
Stephen waited until she was gone, then turned toward the phone alcove.
The payphone on his floor always smelled faintly metallic. The cord was twisted tight enough that it tried to spin the receiver back against his ear if he held it too long. A radiator beside the bulletin board clicked every few seconds, never in a useful pattern.
He checked the wall clock. Eight in Cambridge. Seven in Texas.
Meemaw got the phone on the second ring.
"Well," she said, "look who remembered I exist."
Stephen leaned against the wall. "I've been busy."
"Mm-hmm. You sound worn clean through."
"That fast."
"Honey, I knew when you were lyin' before you knew what a lie was. Do not start now."
The skin around his mouth loosened before he could stop it.
"How's school," she asked.
"Finals. Paper fallout. Eugene collapsed."
That sharpened her. "Collapsed how."
"Exhaustion. Low blood sugar. Nothing serious."
"Nothing serious is still stupid."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And what about you."
"I'm functional."
"That was not the question."
He tightened two fingers around the phone cord until it bit into his knuckles.
Meemaw made a quiet sound through her nose. "You eatin' real food, or are you drinkin' coffee and callin' it character."
"Paige is trying to correct the problem."
"That girl's got more sense than a truckload of boys."
He heard movement on the other end. A muffled voice. Then Meemaw, farther from the receiver. "You hush. He knows you're there." Back into the phone: "Hang on. Your brother's worked himself into a state."
The line shifted hands.
Sheldon came on without hello.
"You will not believe the mathematical nuisance I am enduring."
Stephen closed his eyes briefly. "Good evening, Sheldon."
"This is not an evening matter. It is a category matter."
"Worse."
"There is a boy named Spencer Reid."
Stephen opened his eyes again. "That sounds threatening."
"He is my age. Caltech is allowing him to sit in on graduate lectures."
"Outrageous."
"They are calling him a prodigy."
"Sounds familiar."
"He is attempting to occupy a space already filled."
Stephen pressed his thumb into the cord to stop it twisting tighter. "That's rough."
"It is structurally offensive."
That almost got him.
Sheldon kept going, quick now, fully committed. "He submitted a paper on modular arithmetic. It contained three errors."
"And you corrected him."
"Obviously."
"And."
"He thanked me."
Stephen looked at the bulletin board across the hall and held the laugh in his throat by force. "That's harder."
"It is infuriating."
"So your mirror image with better manners."
"Incorrect. I do not require better manners. I require a less crowded category."
The laugh got out anyway, short and helpless.
Sheldon went colder. "I do not see why this is amusing."
"You will."
"I will not."
Meemaw's voice cut in from somewhere behind him. "You two gonna breathe sometime tonight."
Sheldon lowered his voice, which on him meant almost nothing. "History remembers originals."
"I'm sure it will," Stephen said. "Merry Christmas, Shelly."
"I prefer intellectually merry."
Then he was gone.
Meemaw came back laughing under her breath. "That one could argue with a fence post and still expect it to apologize."
"He'd publish the transcript."
"He would."
Her tone shifted after that, just a little. Softer. Closer.
"You sound better than you did last month."
"Trying."
"Good. And I meant what I said about Paige."
Stephen looked down at the radiator, at the paint flaking around the pipe where the heat always hit too hard.
"She's good for you," Meemaw said. "Sharp head. Kind heart. Hard mix to find. Do not sit there gettin' shy on me."
He let the phone cord slip once through his fingers, then caught it again.
"I know," he said.
"That's right." He could hear her smile in the pause that followed. "Now promise me you'll eat somethin' with weight before bed."
"I will."
"No. Say it right."
He shut his eyes briefly. "I promise."
"That's my boy. Love you, Stephen."
"Love you too."
He stayed with the dial tone for a second after she hung up, receiver still against his ear, then set it back in the cradle and stood there until the radiator clicked again.
Christmas Eve made the campus feel unfinished.
Not empty. Just hollow in places. Some windows across the courtyard were dark. Others still had the dull yellow light of people who had stayed too long. Snow had started piling against the edges of the glass. The lab was open. The nightly run still needed watching. Stephen was there because it was easier to stay in motion than stop.
The output rolled across the monitor in tagged blocks and correction checks.
The door opened.
Paige came in with two mugs and snow on her shoulders. Her cheeks were red from the cold. She kicked the door shut behind her with the side of her boot and looked at him like she had known exactly where she'd find him.
"I had a feeling."
"That I'd be here."
"That you'd say that first."
She set one mug down near his elbow and shrugged out of her coat. Cold air came in with her, along with the smell of snow and damp wool. Stephen shifted his chair half an inch so she could sit beside him without knocking the cable loose from the terminal.
"You should be somewhere else," he said.
"That sounds rich coming from this chair."
"It wasn't meant to."
"Then it failed."
He picked up the mug. "You're sharp tonight."
"I brought coffee on Christmas Eve. That was your warning."
The lab phone rang before he could answer.
Stephen picked it up. Static. Then McGee.
"Merry Christmas from California."
Paige leaned close enough to hear and said, "You sound smug."
"I am smug. It's sixty-two degrees."
"That's obscene."
"That's perspective."
Stephen said, "You called to report weather."
"I called to confirm the East Coast has not turned finals into a medical condition."
Paige said, "Too late."
McGee laughed softly. "I'm in my aunt's kitchen. Someone's asleep on the couch. There's a dog under the table I don't recognize. It felt like a good time to bother you."
"That does sound efficient," Stephen said.
"It is. Don't stay in the lab all night."
Paige looked at Stephen. Stephen looked at the terminal.
McGee exhaled on the line. "I can hear the silence. That means I'm right. Merry Christmas."
He hung up.
The room settled again around the machine hum.
Paige reached into her bag and slid a narrow box across the desk.
"Open it."
Stephen looked from the box to her face.
"I know what's in it," Paige said. "That part's for you."
He opened it carefully.
Inside lay a black fountain pen, matte finish, clean weight, no decoration except the small engraving near the clip.
proof ≈ trust
He turned it once in his hand.
Paige watched him too closely. "Do not start with balance."
"That was not the first thing I was going to say."
"It was in the top three."
Stephen uncapped it, set the nib to the margin of the printout beside the keyboard, and marked a variable Paige had transposed two pages back without catching.
She looked down. Then back at him.
He said, "It writes well."
Paige stared at him for one second, then laughed once, tired and real. "That was terrible."
"You wanted honesty."
"I wanted a reaction."
"That was a reaction."
She took the pen from him, checked the correction, and shook her head. "You are impossible."
The warmth in her voice changed the word enough to let it stay.
Stephen reached into his bag and handed her the flat package he had wrapped in printer paper because that was what he had and because ribbon would have felt like lying.
Paige peeled the tape back with one thumbnail and unwrapped a small glass prism.
The monitor light hit it and threw a strip of color across the desk. Red over the printout. Blue over her knuckles. A thin yellow line over the base of the terminal.
Paige went still.
"You said once," Stephen started, stopped, then tried again, "you said you liked light better when something made it change direction."
She looked up at him.
"It seemed like yours."
That was all.
Her face shifted before she got control of it again. Not big. Just honest.
"You listened."
"Yes."
She turned the prism once between her fingers and watched the line of color move over the desk. "That's inconvenient."
"Why."
"I had something teasing ready."
"Use it anyway."
She set the prism down beside the monitor and leaned her shoulder against his for one quiet second. Warm. Brief. Real enough to make the room feel different after.
Then she pulled back and looked at the screen. "Your nightly run is drifting."
Stephen followed her eyes. "Half a point."
"You saw that."
"Yes."
"And."
"It'll settle."
Paige reached for the keyboard and frowned at one line of output. "That's optimism."
"That's pattern recognition."
She moved her mug out of the way with two fingers. "Eat before you go back to your room."
"I'm not going straight to my room."
"I know."
That sat between them longer than it should have.
They shut the system down enough to leave it without pretending they were done with it. Stephen capped the pen and slipped it into the pocket of his notebook. Paige rewrapped the prism in the paper so it would not slip out on the ice.
Outside, the snow cracked under their shoes. The courtyard lights had halos around them in the cold. Wind got under his coat and stayed there.
Paige tucked her hands inside her sleeves. "You're coming back tomorrow."
"Probably."
"That's what I thought."
They crossed half the courtyard in silence.
Then Stephen angled, just slightly, toward the lab building.
Paige caught it immediately.
"No."
He looked at her. "I was adjusting."
"You were lying with your feet."
"That sounds unfair."
"It sounds accurate."
She pointed toward the student center. "Food. Then bed. Then you can ruin Christmas Day on your own schedule."
The corners of his mouth moved again, this time enough that the cold caught at the skin.
Paige saw it and nodded once, like that settled the matter. "Go."
Stephen looked once toward the lab windows. A few were still lit. He could almost hear the monitor whine from here because he expected it, because the room had gotten into his head and stayed there.
Paige stayed where she was, coat pulled tight, waiting to see whether he would do something stupid the second she stopped looking.
He put one hand up briefly without turning all the way around.
Paige jerked her chin toward the student center. "Keep moving."
He did.
The cold stayed in his fingers all the way across the courtyard.
(Thanks for reading, feel free to write a comment, leave a review, and Power Stones are always appreciated. Let me know if you find any mistakes)